THE SHADOW.
Your most astute strategist is the general ready, at any stage of the
campaign, to authorize a complete change of plan, if the circumstances
call for it, and to make for the end in view along wholly altered lines.
The Braddocks of warfare are those who at all hazards persist in the
course at first laid out.
Radwalader, contrary to his custom, did not leave his apartment until
mid-afternoon of the following day. He carried a valise, and stopped for
a moment on the step to snuff the fresh air with appreciation. Then he
said "Psst!" and the yellow cab which was standing at the corner of the
avenue squeaked into motion and drew up at the kerb.
"Gare St. Lazare," said Radwalader briefly. He flung his valise upon the
seat, climbed in after it, put one foot on the _strapontin_ to steady
himself, and plunged, with a grin of amusement, into the latest number
of _Le Rire_. He could afford a few moments of sheer frivolity: for he
had just finished eight hours of careful reflection, and his plans were
quite complete.
The driver of the yellow cab had only grunted in reply, but he drove
briskly enough, once they were under way. Though the day was warm, he
wore his fawn-coloured coat, with the triple cape, and had turned up the
collar about his ears. His white cockaded hat, a size too large, was
tipped forward over his nose, and between it and his coat-collar, in the
back, showed a strip of bright red hair. For features, he had a nobbly
nose, with a purple tinge, and a mustache like a red nail-brush.
From time to time Radwalader looked up from his reading to remark their
progress, and invariably he smiled. The Place de l'Etoile, freshly
sprinkled, and smelling refreshingly of cool wet wood; the omnibus and
tramway stations, with their continual ebb and flow of passengers
seeking numbers; the stupendous dignity of the Arc, and the preposterous
insignificance of three Englishwomen staring up at it, with their mouths
open, and Baedekers in their hands; the fresh green of the chestnuts on
the Avenue de Friedland; the crack of a teamster's whip, and his "_Ahi!
Houp!_" of encouragement to the giant gray stallions, toiling up the
steep incline of the Faubourg St. Honore; the crowds of women at Felix
Potin's, pinching the fat fowls, and stowing parcels away in netted
bags; the "shish-shish-shish" of an infantry company shuffling at
half-step toward the gateway of La Pepiniere; the people _terrasse_
before the restaurants on the Place du Havre--it was all very amusing,
very characteristic, very _Parigot_. More than ever, Radwalader felt
that he needed it all, that he must have it at any price, that life
would not be worth living else or elsewhere. Fortunately, there was no
reason for a change, so long as he kept his wits. Indeed his prospects
were brighter now than they had ever been.
Once a bridal carriage whirled past him, all windows, and with a lamp at
each corner, and a red-faced quartette inside; and other carriages
followed, full of exultant guests, whose full-dress costumes, in this
broad daylight, were, to his Saxon sense, as incongruous as a Welsh
rabbit on a breakfast-table--all bowling across to the Champs, and so
away to the Restaurant Gillet. Again, it was a glimpse of a funeral
moving up to a side door of St. Augustin, with an abject little band of
mourners trailing along on foot, behind the black and purple car; again,
nothing more than a sally between an _agent_ and a ragamuffin at a
crossing--"_Ouste, galopin!_" "_Eh, 'spece de balai! As-tu vu la
ferme?_"--or a driver's injunction to his horse--"_Tu prends donc
racine, saucisse_"--or a girl's laugh, or the squawk of a tram-horn, or
the cries of the _camelots_--"_Voyez l'Parispor! Voici la Pa-resse!
Voyez l'D-rrr-oi 'd'l'homme!_" The importance of the phenomenon was not
significant. It was all Paris, and Thomas Radwalader was very glad to be
alive. When he left the yellow cab in the Cour du Havre, the driver had
fifty centimes _pourboire_, though it was not like his passengers to go
beyond three sous.
Trivial as this circumstance was, it apparently had a strangely
demoralizing effect upon the driver of the yellow cab. He drew on for
perhaps twenty feet, and then deliberately clambered down from his box,
and followed his late _client_ to the ticket office, at the foot of the
eastern stairway. Here, with some ingenuity, he remarked, "_Meme
chose_."
"Poissy _premiere_?"
"_Oui._"
In the first-class carriage of the Poissy train, a little, oblong pane
of glass, above Radwalader's head, enabled him, had he been so minded,
to glance into the next compartment--enabled the single occupant of the
next compartment, who _was_ so minded, to glance, as they started, into
his.
In the Cour du Havre an infuriated _agent_ apostrophized the deserted
vehicle:
"_Sale sous-les-pieds!_ He amuses himself elsewhere, then, _ton drole!_"
The which was strictly true.
As the train rumbled through the illuminated tunnel, the driver of the
yellow cab did a number of things with the most surprising rapidity and
decision. He threw his varnished white hat out of the window, and
followed it immediately with his triple-caped overcoat. He stripped off
his fawn-coloured trousers, thereby revealing the unusual circumstance
that he wore two pairs--one of corduroy. The latter hurtled out into the
smoky tunnel, in the wake of the hat and coat, and the climax was capped
by a like disappearance of the red hair, the nail-brush mustache, and
the nobbly nose. Then Monsieur Jules Vicot smoothed his workman's
blouse, dragged a Tam-o'-shanter from his pocket, pulled it down over
his eyes, settled the scarlet handkerchief at his throat, threw himself
back on the cushions, and lit a cigarette with hands that trembled
excessively.
At Poissy Radwalader alighted, and swung rapidly away, across the
_place_, in the direction of the Villa Rossignol. At Poissy the other
also alighted, strolled over to the Hotel de Rouen, and, in the company
of a slowly consumed _matelote_ and four successive absinthes, dozed,
pondered, smoked--and waited for the dark.
That morning Margery and Andrew had told Mrs. Carnby. For an instant the
good lady faced Andrew, her eyes blazing with inquiry. He met their
challenge serenely.
"Won't you congratulate me," he asked, smiling--"and the only girl in
the world?"
"The _only_ girl in the world?" demanded Mrs. Carnby audaciously.
"Yes--just that."
Mrs. Carnby pounced upon Margery.
"Of _course_ I congratulate you! You dear! And, as for _you_," she
added, whirling upon Andrew once more, "you're the luckiest man I
know--except Jeremy! And you've worried me almost into a decline. I
thought you'd never get her--I mean, I thought she'd never get you--I
don't know _what_ I mean, Andrew Vane! Go along in, both of you, and
sing about your roses and jugs of wine and nightingales and moons of
delight. I can see that's all you'll be good for, from now on!"
And so, shamelessly, they did--all over again, from "Wake! for the Sun"
to "flown again, who knows!"
"It's tied up in double bow-knots with our hearts, all this 'Persian
Garden' music," said Andrew. "Do you remember how we used to rave over
it at Beverly? And I loved you even then--from the first night."
Standing behind him, Margery touched his hair.
And so evening came again, drenched in starlight and rose-perfume, and
stirring rapturously to the voice of the nightingale.
"I want to speak to you."
Radwalader touched Andrew's arm as they rose from the table, and led the
way directly through the open window into the garden, and, through the
garden gate, into the Avenue Meissonier beyond. Once there, he fell back
a step, so that they were side by side.
"Let's walk toward the river," he suggested, taking Andrew's arm.
A single lamp swung at the archway of the railroad bridge, but along the
villa walls and under the trees of the Boulevard de la Seine beyond, the
shadows were very dark. Once, as they passed a poplar, one shadow
disengaged itself from the trunk, and at a distance followed them. A
little ahead was the gaily illuminated terrace of L'Esturgeon,
overhanging the river, and crowded with people dining and talking all at
once.
"I saw Mirabelle yesterday," observed Radwalader. "It seems you're off
scot-free."
"Did _she_ tell you that?" asked Andrew in surprise.
"No--only that you'd parted company for good and all. I guessed the
rest. I thought you'd hardly be so foolish as not to consult me, if the
question of money came up."
"Thank the Lord, the episode was free from _that_ element of vulgarity,
at all events!" exclaimed Andrew. "Yes, it's over. It wasn't easy,
Radwalader. I was surprised to find how much she thought of me. But, of
course, there was nothing else to do. In any event, the thing couldn't
have gone on for ever, and when I heard about that telegram, I couldn't
ring down the curtain too soon. But it hurt. Poor little girl! I'll
always think kindly of her, Radwalader, although she came near to losing
me the only thing in the world that's worth while. Well, we said
good-by, and I came down here just on the chance that it mightn't be too
late. It was a thin-enough chance, to my way of thinking, in view of the
past three weeks. By Gad, here was I deserving the worst kind of a
wigging that ever a man got, and lo and behold, it was the prodigal son
after all! Mrs. Carnby was the first to congratulate me. Will you be the
next?"
"Do you mean that Miss Palffy is going to marry you?" asked Radwalader,
coming to a full stop.
"Just that," said Andrew; "though why she should, after all this--"
"Oh, rot!" laughed the other. "You've been no worse than other men, and
so long as you've owned up--"
"We'll never agree on the question of whether I deserve her or not," put
in Andrew. "Never in the whole course of my life shall I forgive myself
this folly. But we won't talk of that. The fact remains that I'm
forgiven, and that she's going to marry me. Oh, _Gawd_!"
He looked up at the sky and bit his lip. He was desperately shy of
slopping over, and, for a moment, desperately near to it.
Presently he continued. They had rounded L'Esturgeon now, and were
walking along the southern side of the Pont de Poissy, close to the
rail. Radwalader's pieces were all in place for the opening of the new
game.
"When a chap's only been pulled out of a horrible mess by the merest
chance, and when, into the bargain, he's been engaged to the
one-and-only for something under twenty-four hours, he is apt to do
considerable slobbering. I hope you'll give me credit for sparing you
all I _might_ say, Radwalader, when I confine myself to saying that I'm
in luck."
"And that, you most certainly are," said Radwalader cheerfully. "I'm
glad you're so well out of your scrape, Vane, and I congratulate you
heartily." A pressure of his fingers on Andrew's arm lent the phrase the
emphasis of a hand-shake. "Miss Palffy is charming--so clean and
straight, and, to say nothing of her beauty, with such high standards.
To be quite frank with you, I'm a bit surprised that you got off so
easily. But, since you have, there's nothing to be said, except that
she's a stunner, and I can understand now how much all this has meant to
you. What a thing to have standing between you, eh? If Mirabelle _had_
been ugly, I fancy you'd have paid her about anything she chose to ask."
"If I'd been _sure_ of getting Margery!" said Andrew.
"Of course--yes. That's what I mean. With Miss Palffy as an object,
there could scarcely be a limit to the hush-money one would put up to
clear away any obstacles that might exist."
"I expect not," said Andrew nervously. "I couldn't lose her now--I
simply couldn't. It would kill me."
"I once knew of such a case," said Radwalader musingly. "Chap just about
to marry the girl, and he found out that there was something very
crooked about his birth--that he was illegitimate, in fact. The father
hung on to him like an octopus and bled him like a leech. But
the--er--girl never knew."
"It was worth it to him," commented Andrew, "if he'd have lost the girl
else."
"I've forgotten what he paid," said Radwalader, "but I know it was
pretty stiff--in the form of a regular allowance by the year."
"Was the chap rich?" asked Andrew. He was looking down the river, and
taking great breaths of the delicious night air, thrilling with the
memory of Margery waiting back there for him; and his part in the
conversation was little more than automatic.
"Reasonably," said Radwalader. "Enough to stand the strain. Curious old
house, this--isn't it?"
He paused, and leaned upon the railing of the bridge.
"The plaster's rotten as possible," answered Andrew after a moment,
during which he had been hacking boyishly at it with his knife.
"You know both sides of the bridge were lined with houses once," said
Radwalader. "Picturesque it must have been! This is the only one left,
and it doesn't look as if it could keep from toppling over into the
river very much longer. Lord! how fast the water runs down there! It's a
veritable mill-race. I shouldn't care to have to swim against it."
He hesitated deliberately, and then continued, with a slight change of
tone:
"There's something I want to tell you, Vane. I didn't care to bother
you with it as long as you were worrying on your own account, but
now--confidence for confidence. The fact of the matter is that I need
money, and need it badly."
Andrew pursued his hacking.
"If that's all that's troubling you," he said, "I can probably make you
a loan that will tide you over. I'll be very glad to, if I can. How much
do you need?"
A workman slouched past them, his hands in the pockets of his corduroy
trousers, his tam o' shanter pulled down over his eyes.
"No," said Radwalader, "I don't want to borrow; I might never be able to
repay. But suppose I were to give you a piece of information--a
tip--that was of the very greatest importance to you, mightn't it be
worth a small sum?"
Andrew stared at him curiously.
"I don't understand," he said. "Do you mean that you know something that
is very important to me?"
"Vastly important."
"And that is known to no one else?"
"To one other person only."
"And that you want to _sell_ to me?"
"That I want to _tell_ you. You can do as you see fit about paying me
for it. I think you will, but if not--"
He smiled evilly, secure of the darkness.
"There are other ways of utilizing it," he added.
Andrew chopped thoughtfully at the plaster.
"I don't seem to understand what you're driving at," he said presently,
"but, somehow--well, I don't like the sound of it, Radwalader. Of
course, I know you don't mean it that way, but it sounds rather--rather
unfriendly, if you'll allow me to say so. Oh, _damn_ it all!"
"What?" asked Radwalader, surprised at the sudden exclamation.
"There goes my knife. I ought to have known better than to hew at this
stuff with it. I suppose that's the last I shall ever see of it--and a
new one, too. Why--that's queer! Did you notice? There wasn't any
splash."
He peered over the rail.
"Hello!" he added, "here's a ladder--leading down."
"There's a little garden down there," explained Radwalader, peering over
in his turn. "I remember now. It's on part of the foundations of another
old house, and the chap who lives in this one grows flowers there, oddly
enough, and goes up and down on the ladder. Your knife's down there,
somewhere. Jove! but it's dark!"
But Andrew already had one leg across the railing, one foot on the top
round of the ladder.
"This is easy," he said, "and I have my match-box, too. You see--well,
Margery bought the knife only this morning in the bazar, and I wouldn't
lose it for the world. And, by the way, Radwalader, forget what I said
just now, will you? It wasn't very decent."
Then, with a short laugh of embarrassment, he descended into the
shadows.
The shadows! They were very deep below there, until broken by the
flicker of Andrew's match. Then the shadows under the doorway of the old
house, up by the top of the bridge, were deeper, and--what was
this?--one shadow moved--moved--drew near to the man who leaned upon the
rail, whistling "Au Clair de la Lune."
"All right!" called Andrew. "I have it. Now we come up again."
"Go slow," advised Radwalader. "You'll find it darker than ever, after
the match. Why--what--"
A hand on his shoulder had spun him round, but he had no more than
recognized the white face grinning into his, no more than time to
comprehend the words, "You've whistled for the last time, by God!"
before the steel-shod butt of a revolver crashed three times in
succession on--and through--his forehead.
"_Once for me!_" said Jules Vicot, between his teeth, "_and once for my
wife, and once for your son!_"
He hurled Radwalader from him, ran a few feet, turned at the rail to see
the smitten man writhing and groping blindly on the cobbles of the
driveway, and then, emptying the entire contents of the revolver in his
direction, vaulted with a laugh into the swirling Seine below.
The guilty river caught him, hid him, hurried him away. Only once he
moved of his own volition, and then she laid her brown hand on his mouth
and stilled him, once for all. Around the wide curves of her course, he
was to go, through the thrashing locks of Les Mureaux and Notre Dame de
la Garenne, past Les Andelys and Pont de l'Arche, and the high quays of
Elbeuf, and the twinkling lights of Rouen, and the vineyards and the
poplars and the red-roofed villages--on, on, on, to where the lights of
Le Havre and Honfleur wink, each to each, across the widened channel.
For such was the course appointed whereby the most pitiful shadow that
ever fell from Poissy Bridge should make its way to sea.
Back there was the sound of many voices and of running feet. Radwalader
lay with his head on Andrew's arm, his eyes closed, and his breath
coming in short hard gasps. The first arrivals from the town were three
young Englishmen, who had been dining at L'Esturgeon, were on their way
to the station, and outran all others at the sound of the five shots.
One of them proved to be a medical student, and fell at once to making
an examination, while the others held back the crowd.
"How did it happen?" he asked. "What was it all about?"
"God knows!" said Andrew. "I'd been down the ladder there to look for a
knife I'd dropped, and I was just coming up again when I heard him call
out, and then a scuffle and the sound of blows, and then the firing. I
think whoever shot him jumped into the river. There was a big splash
just as I came up to the level of the bridge."
"Yes," said the other. "We heard that from the street, just as we
started to run. God! how that blackguard piled it on! Look here--his
head's all pushed in, and he's shot in at least two places. I'm afraid
the poor chap's done for. Hello! he's coming to."
Radwalader slowly opened his eyes, and after a moment seemed striving to
speak. Andrew bent down, wiping away the blood.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is there something you want to say, dear old
man?"
Without replying, Radwalader glanced eloquently at the Englishman, and,
at this mute signal, the latter stepped back.
"What is it?" whispered Andrew. "Do you want to tell us who it was?"
Radwalader shook his head.
"Is it what you were going to tell me a few minutes ago?" asked Andrew,
with a kind of intuition.
For a full half-minute, the dying man's eyes were fixed upon the eager,
solicitous face that bent so close to his--upon the earnest eyes so
curiously like and yet unlike his own, upon the white teeth showing
between the parted lips, upon the straight patrician nose and the smooth
clear complexion. Then, with a singular smile, a smile almost
affectionate in its sweetness:
"It's of no consequence now," he murmured.
He raised one hand, and gently touched Andrew on the cheek.
"Good-by, my boy," he added, more feebly.
His head fell limply, and he shuddered once, and then was very still.
A moment later, Andrew laid him back upon the driveway, and covered his
face.
THE END.
[Transcriber's notes:
Italics changed to _Italics_.
Some inconsistent spellings and hyphenations have been retained.]